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Awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the prize is intended to 'honour the computer scientists and engineers who created the systems and underlying theoretical foundations that have propelled the information technology industry'.

According to the ACM, the techniques developed by Allen have advanced the use of high-performance computing in areas such as weather forecasting, DNA matching, and encryption.

She retired in 2002, having first joined IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in 1957, to teach FORTRAN to the other IBM scientists.

'Fran Allen's work has led to remarkable advances in compiler design and machine architecture that are at the foundation of modern high-performance computing,' said the Chair of ACM's Turing Award Committee, Ruzena Bajcsy, who is also professor of Electrical and Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. 'Her contributions have spanned most of the history of computer science, and have made possible computing

First presented in 1966, the award is named after the British mathematician Alan Turing, famous as the father of computer science and a significant figure at Bletchley Park and its cryptanalysis of the German Enigma cipher.

A further link between Allen and Turing was made by the award committee: 'It is interesting to note Allen's role in highly secret intelligence work on security codes for the organization now known as the National Security Agency,' added Bajcsy, 'since it was Alan Turing, the namesake of this prestigious award, who devised techniques to help break the German codes during World War II.'

IBM Fellow, Fran Allen

You can find more info about the award on the ACM website, and more information about her work at IBM here.

Last year's winner was Peter Naur, of Backus-Naur Form (BNF), for his work defining the Algol block-structured language, with dynamic and scoped variables.